


Worst Kept Secret In Birmingham

by stargategeek



Series: His Beautiful Ghost [2]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Aberama Gold hair porn, Alcohol, F/M, Feels, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Not-so-secret, Secret love, Shave and a haircut two bits, Smut, Unrequited, nursemaid, requited, sexy lingerie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-10-17 06:46:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20616728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stargategeek/pseuds/stargategeek
Summary: She’d been having an excellent night before she found Aberama Gold stooped on her doorstep with a bullet wound and that knowing look in his eye.Of course he came here.She was his worst kept secret.





	Worst Kept Secret In Birmingham

“If you keep getting shot there isn’t going to be much left of you to stitch back together again.”

Polly finishes the knot on the bandage around his arm with a small soothing pat. 

He gives a smile that was more a grimace and lifts the bottle to his mouth. “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall...” He drinks.

He seems almost too at ease on her couch, sitting in his undershirt with a half-full bottle of Irish whiskey in his free hand. He lolls his head against the back of the divan, his eyes glassy from both the pain and the drink. She can feel the way he watches her - drinking her in almost as readily as he drinks the whiskey. 

She puts her kit away and fetches her own drink, sitting abandoned on the side table. She’d been having an excellent night before she found Aberama Gold stooped on her doorstep with a bullet wound and that knowing look in his eye. Of course he came here. She was his worst kept secret.

She grabs her glass and wills the cold distance back into her veins.

“Now get up, I don’t want you bleeding all over my parlour.”

He laughs. 

“I won’t bleed,” he looks down at the expertly tied bandage on his arm. “I’ve been touched by a healer’s hands.”

She can’t stop the small smirk that forms on her face. _You can take the gypsy out of the caravan..._

“Sit with me, my beautiful ghost,” he murmurs in his native tongue. She would be lying if she said she wasn’t a little affected by the way he practically breathed Romani.

Her lips purse, as though considering the offer. What else was she going to do any way. There was no young thing hiding up in her bedroom closet to entertain her for the night. She might as well indulge the cutthroat little man who continued to look at her like _that_. 

With a deft nod in his direction she sets about fixing them a proper drink. The good whiskey, with ice. She replaces the half-drunk bottle of cheap hooch in his hand with a tumbler filled with amber-gold liquid.

“You only get one, so savour it.”

His mouth breaks into a crooked little grin. “Naturally,” he tips his head in thanks.

She lowers herself on to the divan next to his uninjured side and tucks her stockinged feet up under her. The way she sits, with her back straight, she is above him looking down, resting her elbow along the back of the divan. 

He tries to school his expression but he can’t quite hide from her just how pleased he is. Pleased to have the privilege to look up at her and admire. It’s a heady aphrodisiac.

On the table in front of them lies her cigarette case and matchbox. It takes her little to no thought to reach over and pluck out a cigarette. They are small, sharp and expensive. 

She lights the cigarette and snuffs out the match with a smooth flick of her hand which he eyes with the same concentration, the same absorption as he has watched her thus far. 

He hasn’t even touched his drink yet. 

_Give a man an inch..._

For tonight though, she is feeling a bit romantic. She allows those large grey eyes to slowly roam over her face, her long bare neck; across the silky frills over her collar bone and the vest she wears that diminishes the appearance of her breasts. His palms still itch at the thought of them, high and pert and soft. He takes in her tightly cinched waist; to the very smallest colour and texture of her trousers; all the way down to her nylon-clad toes, peeking just a small hand’s movement away from his touch. 

His gaze makes her warm, and a little damp. She stubs out her cigarette and immediately lights another one.

“Aren’t you going to drink that?” 

The stem of her glass gently clinks against the rim of his where it is resting in his hand gently on top of his thigh.

“I’m savouring.“

“I meant the drink.”

His mouth presses into a little moue. 

His gaze breaks away and he looks down at the hand and the glass held within it. _His worst kept secret..._

Normally she isn’t one to share, but tonight she was feeling generous. She leans closer into his side and brings the smoking cigarette up to his lips. It did not escape her notice; the way his body shifts ever so slightly nearer to her warmth; how the knuckles of the hand holding his whiskey brush against her thigh as she leans over him; and the brief press of his bottom lip against her finger as she inserts the cigarette into his mouth. A phantom of a kiss.

_Cheeky fuck_, she thinks.

The smoking embers light a warm fire in the pit of his eyes. The hand of his injured arm lifts to pluck the cigarette from his mouth, he blows out a long plume followed by a rumbling sigh. 

“Expensive shite,” he murmurs. Smoke escapes and curls handsomely around his nose. “I could roll you something stronger.”

She snatches the cigarette back from him. 

“It’s not about being stronger,” she jabs it into the crystal ash tray. Her look is regal, almost smug. “It’s about how much it costs.”

Aberama laughs. “It’s still shite.”

He laughs until she starts to laugh with him. When she leans backs into the couch she is nestled even closer to him. The stem of her glass clinks against the edge of his tumbler and they both take a drink. She can tell by the way the lines in his face relax he enjoys the whiskey far more than the smoke. 

What he enjoys even more than that is that he is here, in _her_ parlour, sipping on _her_ whiskey, with _her_ sitting beside him. 

His eyes close contentedly, and she takes the moment to study his face. The light from the fireplace dances across the long drawn cheeks, heavily shadowed with stubble, and the thickening grey moustache that frames his funny little mouth.

Despite the facial hair his face seems a little naked to her without the curtain of hair that he had once sported. She reaches up and touches his temples and he sighs pleasurably. He got it cut a couple of months ago and already he was starting to shag out a bit around the ears and the top of his head. She curls a lock of dark grey hair around her finger until it begins to pinch his scalp. She tugs. His eyes shoot open.

“Hello there,” she leans in close to his face so that their noses brush. His breath changes infinitesimally, his mouth rolls and puckers then rolls again. Words he would never say out loud caught on those lips and dragged back in. It was still his secret after all.

Polly was loath to admit it, but she loved the way he smelt - of the caravan, and of gunsmoke, and rain water, and of the spices he uses in his crock. His wife’s spices, she thinks, looking back down at him and his unkempt hair.

“She used to do it, didn’t she?” she sweeps her hand across his scalp, dragging her nails through his gypsy locks. 

His eyes close again. He misses it, a woman’s hand running across his scalp, over the hairs at his nape, and down his chest.

“Mmm,” he hums. His tone warm and soft, and soft. “When we got married she made me vow that she would be only one I let cut it.”

His smile spreads. 

“If I ever came home with my hair shorter than it was when I left, she would’ve had me sleep outside. With the dogs.”

Polly smiles, running her hand through the short locks.

“When she died, I kept my vow,” his eyes open, piercing her with their grey sharpness. “Until now.”

There is a small catch in her breath. It does not go unnoticed. 

“Why?”

He shrugs, his eyes not leaving hers. “Loyalties change.”

Polly retracts her hand.

_She knows._

_He knows, she knows. _

_The worst kept secret in Birmingham._

She pulls away to standing, putting her glass down on the stand. 

“You stay there, I won’t be a moment.”

Her feet moves faster than she intends, to her kitchen. She tears open the drawers until she finds a pair of steel scissors meant for cutting twine.  
Next, her en-suite bathroom. She fishes out soap, a comb, and an old shaving kit left behind by one of her paramours. The soap smells artificial and French, she tosses it. He will not be leaving her home smelling like a London whorehouse. Under the sink she keeps a bar of natural soap, the type her mother used to make by hand. It brings memories of her childhood with it, along with the smell of the woods and the spirit of the rain. 

Entering her bedroom, she collects a basin and jug from her wash stand - expensive, Russian, delft blue - it had once washed the face of kings, it would now be used to wash Aberama Gold.

Along with some large white towels she carries all these items back into her parlour. To him.

He is sitting on the sofa, examining the charred bullet hole in his shirt. 

“Come on, get up,” she instructs.

He drops the shirt and stands slowly on slightly wavering feet. 

After depositing her wares on the chair she lays one of the large white towels on the floor in front of the ottoman. 

“Sit here,” she pats the leather top. 

He takes a small sip of his whiskey and places the tumbler next to her glass. He holds his shoulder, obeying tentatively, a wary look in his eyes.

“Can’t have you looking like a stray dog, can we?”

His lips twist into a grimacing smile. “What would the neighbours say...”

He sits where she instructs him and she takes another towel and drapes it over his bare shoulders. 

She turns away from him and begins unhooking the clasps of her trousers. She wouldn’t want them to get ruined, she reasons. The inky black material slides down her long legs, achingly slow. She can feel Aberama’s gaze on every patch of newly exposed skin. 

Next come the stockings. They aren’t cheap and they were her most comfortable pair, _she reasons._ She unhooks them one at a time, and rolls them down her legs _one at a time_, then removes her garter belt, dropping it unceremoniously on a chair.

Aberama is rapt. His mouth parts open and the nerve under his eye gives a little twitch - a knowing little twitch that sends a small pulse down to her core.

She approaches him on firm, steady feet.

“Sit back,” she orders. 

“What...” he begins to say. She lunges toward him and shoves him in the chest, forcing his torso back. The towel slides an inch off one of his shoulders.

“I said sit back,” her mouth curls into a the ghost of a lustful smile. “Now stay there.”

He holds his body still but his eyes follow her every movement. 

She pours the water from the jug into the basin and sets it next to him. She lays out the items from the shaving kit, the comb and the soap on a towel next to their drinks. She polishes off what is left in her glass in one long swallow, showing off her pale neck. There is a devious twinkle to her eye that causes the knob of his throat to bob up and down.

She smiles, picking up the scissors, carrying them with a measured, hypnotic pace around the ottoman, circling around him like an artist would a canvas, or a vulture would its awaiting meal. Most men would be sweating where they stood if she came around them casually wielding a sharp implement. Aberama was not most men. He stays still as instructed, in tune to every step she makes and every breath. His obedience is ...intoxicating.

She comes around to his front and stood before him. Her back ramrod straight, every inch the gypsy queen. She runs her hand through his hair and grabs a fistful at the top, pulling hard enough to make him wince a little. She roughly jerks him so he is forced to look at her deep dark eyes, so that he knows who holds all the power. It was as alluring as holding his blade to his own throat was. 

“May I make myself comfortable?”

She nudges a leg between his knees, notching his feet apart under she can stand between them.

“Yes,” he rasps. 

With his acquiescence she lets go of his hair and lifts one enticing leg on to the ottoman next to his thigh, allowing his gaze to roam from her hip down to the perfect arch of her foot. In a smooth stride her other foot foists her to standing over him, and instinctively his hand comes to her waist to stabilize her. His palms are warm, they practically burn through the flimsy silk shift. She rests her hand on his working shoulder, careful not to bump or jostle the arm that she had bound so expertly, and lowers herself slowly onto his lap.

Bare knees hug his waist, the barely covering frill on her ass just hovers over his crotch; the scissors positioned between them, held in her other hand. They made a metallic little _ ching _ sound as she parts the steel blades.

“Hold still,” her mouth curls into a wicked smile. “Or I’ll cut your ear off.”

All he gives is a short, curt nod of the head. 

It’s all the permission she needs.

She sets to work with the scissors, moving carefully, drawing out her movements for his benefit. She gathers small tufts of hair between her fingers and snips in sharp, succinct cuts, as clean and precise as everything she does.

She used to do his for her husband oh so many years ago, and for her nephews back when they had been young, and dirt poor, and her brother had pissed off again on another ponzi scheme. She has not lost her touch in all these years.

Aberama sits as still as death as she trims him. 

She shears some of the length off the top, then trims some more precise work around the ears and the sides. His hands light around her waist, their grip present, but slack. When she drags her nails over his scalp he sighs, eyes half-closing in pleasure.

His mouth opens and he breathes out a Romani curse. _“My ghost...”_

One hand slides down to her thigh. She feels the slight protrusion of his cock, beginning to stiffen. He wants her...or course he wants her. Why else would he be here? 

“Poll...” he sighs again.

“Shhh,” she caresses his cheek with featherlight brushes of her fingers. “Patience, love.”

His eyes crack open. They are incredibly dark, the fire from the hearth burns in them. 

Polly would be lying if she said she was unaffected. A delicious puddle was forming against the lace and silk, warmed by his lusty blood, and the heat of his crotch.

“How many children have you produced like this?” she asks, teasing. She makes a few more strategic cuts.

“A few,” he smirks, his hand squeezes her thigh.

“Well you won’t be making any tonight,” she forcefully grabs him by the chin, forcing his gaze to look up at her. His eyelids flutter, pleased.

She puts the scissors down. She takes the edge of the towel falling from his shoulders and dips it into the basin. The water is as ice cold as the rain water in his troughs, it cools their flaming and flushed skin. He jumps a little when she applies the cold wet rag to his face, the bump of their pelvises against each other is delicious. She wets his chin and cheeks all the way down to the base of his collarbone, lingering just a bit long on the spots that make him quiver. Soap comes next, warmed between her hands and dappled on in a thick froth around the areas she’s wetted. 

He lets out a soft moan.

She washes her hands in the basin and wipes them on his undershirt. 

The straight razor from the old kit is still sharp despite not being used in some time, and the steel of the blade still perfectly reflects her own face in its narrow surface. She sees herself half-naked on his lap, her face glowing. 

_ No, not affected at all._

Her mouth curls into a devious half-smile. The blade, mirroring her, slides down to his face, and the cold sharpness shocks him alert. It’s not the first time she’s held a blade to his throat, it probably won’t be the last. 

“Do you trust me?” she whispers.

“Always,” he replies in Romani. 

She smiles, bringing her bottom down sensuously on to his groin just as the blade swipes cleanly down his cheek. He groans. The hand at her waist tightens it’s grip. She grinds against him and carefully brings the blade back up for another swipe. His hands help guide her against him on the third pass, the pressure is so deft and acute that her thighs quiver a little. 

She moves to the other cheek, continuing the slow, steady, beating rhythm of their hips rutting, neither chasing, nor backing down. Just meeting. Ebb and flow, ebb and flow, fucking _EBB_, torturous _flow._

Sensuous, ringed fingers began playing at her breast, tickling the fabric, pulling it aside so a hot, aching palm could slip inside and cup, and pinch. She has to grip the blade hard just to keep her hand steady. 

She clenches a fist in his freshly trimmed hair and yanks his head back violently. 

“Tilt your head back,” she murmurs. “You filthy, fucking animal.” 

His mouth twitches. She shaves his throat. Their hips continue to rock. The room was sweltering hot now. 

He squeezes her breast in time to the blade gliding over his Adam’s apple. Dark grey eyes look straight into hers, hooded with lust, her own expression reflected in his. Just a few more swipes and she’d be done, just a few more...just...

She lifts the blade from him and everything stops. 

Their rocking; his hand on her breast; hell time itself might as well have stood still. 

She holds the whole of the world in suspense as she hovers the blade over them. His large eyes following the glint of silver.

The blade drops to the floor and the whole of time and space, and their bodies collide at once. 

Their mouths devour one another as hands grab and clutch and tear at whatever they can reach; his hair, her thigh, his arm, her back, the front of his shirt, the silky back of her shift. 

“I can’t wait,” she gasps against his lips. 

He nods, pulling her mouth back to him. He kisses her like a man starved, conquering her mouth then the column of her throat. They lick and bite and kiss what skin is within reach. 

As her hands tore at his belt, so his hands tore at her bustier, ripping the lace and snapping the boning so that his mouth could enclose the nipple. 

She moans. 

She pops the button of his trousers clean off and shoves as much out of the way until she reaches his cock. 

He pulls away from her breast with a soft, hot gasp. “Poll...”

She brings his mouth up to her in a sultry kiss. “Fuck me.”

He nods, adjusting his grip around her for better leverage. She shifts her weight further on to her knees and curls the tops of her feet over his thighs. Whatever scrap of fabric still left intact on her is pushed aside so that she can get him inside her. 

“Agh!” he gives a strangled, gurgling yelp, as her tight warmth encases him. Her eyes shut in anticipated bliss, she didn’t realize she had gripped his arm over the bandage. He movement stopped momentarily overcome by pain. 

Her eyes open, feeling him breathing heavily against her neck.

“Oh Ram,” she removes her hand.

He shakes his head. “I don’t care.” And thrusts. 

Polly’s head throws back in pleasure as he begin a frenetic pace. He leans forward to kiss up her exposed throat, finding her lips again. He draws her bottom lip into his mouth and bites. He curls her tongue against his and slowly slithers her hands into his tangle of hair. She feels against her skin every bristle and bit of stubble she had missed whilst shaving him. He pumps himself up into her like he was boring her for oil - steadily striking a spot so high and hot in her, few of her paramours had been ever able to reach. He was called to it, divined towards her sweet well. 

“Fuck,” she sighs, pressing her forehead against his. 

He breathes her in, clutching her back, taking in every single strained exhale. This is what fucking him was like. It felt beyond physical, beyond lustful, beyond...

“Polly,” his husky voice broke in a slight whine. “Oh Polly, I...” 

She clutches the back of his neck and kisses him. She wasn’t ready to have to his secret revealed, not yet. Not to have it spoken aloud, though he said it with every sigh, and thrust, and desperate grip of her backside. She knew.

But she wasn’t ready.

She kisses him until she starts to feel herself shake, and a white light blinds the inside of her eyelids. She kisses him until his breath catches and his nails dig so hard into her backside she can feel the imprint of them on her skin. 

His body goes slack, his chest heaves, and they just breathe together. 

She’s had bigger men, with wider hands and longer cocks, but no one could fuck with as much feeling as Aberama Gold.

_Perhaps she has a secret of her own._

The snapping of the fireplace slowly enters into her awareness. The soapy water in the bowl right next to where they had just vigorously fucked, sat there unwavering. She was amazed they hadn’t spilt anything in the frenzy. 

“Mmm,” she grins lazily, touching her lips to his. “That was nice.”

He kisses her in return, still holding her as close to him as he can manage. 

“Let me take you to bed, Polly, let me..._the night is not over yet.”_

His Romani tongue gives her shivers all the way down to her cunt.

“You’re a dog,” she teases him. “If I give you a scrap, you will hound me forever.”

She pulls away to see his eyes open and hooded, his lips pressed together firmly. He’s unsure what she means or how he’s meant to take it.

She kisses him again.

“You know how you keep a dog obedient to you?” 

He shrugs. She leans forward to his ear and licks the lobe. “You keep him off the furniture.”

They kiss.

Polly watches him afterwards in the bathroom as he cleans off his face and redresses. She loans him a shirt to replace the sodden bullet-hole ridden one he came in with. He admires his new hair cut.

“You like it?” she asks, feeling almost like a shy girl again. 

He runs his hand through the shorn locks, and tipped his head in thanks. That was all she would ever get out of him.

After helping her clean up her parlour, he grabs his forgotten drink from the stand and throws it back in one smooth gulp.

“You did tell me to savour it,” he gives her a knowing leer.

_Cheeky fuck._

She walks him to the front foyer and helps him ease his injured arm back into his coat sleeve.

“It’s a nice night, Polly Gray,” he says as he skips down her front steps. The moon is high and full above them. He looks up at it, replacing his hat on his head. In the light of the street lamp he looks devastatingly handsome, and he fucking knows it. “A good night to get lost in the woods.”

He holds one of his long, ringed hands out to her, in invitation.

She smiles, but her feet do not move past the threshold. 

“Be careful,” she says.

He adjusts his coat. “Till next time, Gypsy Queen.”

“And Aberama,” she calls. He turns around, grey eyes sparkling with mischievous hope. Something warm dips into her belly. 

“Next time you get yourself shot...go to fucking hospital.”


End file.
